SHANGORDON
Stan Coleman, MacMillan Bloedel's regional To protest cutting in the Willamette National
forester in the firm's huge Alberni Region. We Forest,Oregonians bind themselves to a Douglas
helicoptered to the Franklin River Division fir with bicycle locks under the eye of the sheriff's
office to pick up engineer Dennis Bendickson.
deputy who arrested them. They belong to Earth
They explained how they cut and replant trees
First!, a groupthat stages sit-ins and promotes
under their long-term tree-farm license from
such tactics as disabling logging machinery.
the rine
n
i
Cedar logs ride to a Coos Bay mill on a "spotted
the province. I saw company mills, aircraft,
owl motor homea logger's joke.
owl motor home," a logger's jokee.
and motor pools-an economic empire con
noting jobs for 4,000.
On a sunlit afternoon we choppered gently
onto a gravel bar of Carmanah Creek and
plunged into stained-glass lights of pristine
forest for a moss-carpet stroll under ancient
giants whose crowns were beyond our seeing.
Aloft once more, we skimmed those crowns
until Stan pointed out one that modestly
topped the rest.
"That is the Carmanah giant,"
he said
simply. In its centuries of living it had reached
312 feet and been proclaimed the tallest tree in
Canada. "One of our people found it in a rou
tine flyover," said Stan.
As its fame spread, the big tree became a
symbol of the struggle over forests. MacMillan
Bloedel offered to protect a 1,300-acre
enclave, but environmentalists wanted the
whole 13-mile sweep of the Carmanah Valley.
A recent government compromise saved about
half the valley, disappointing both sides.
Old-Growth Forests: Will We Save Our Own?
133